“What about freedom of
expression when anti-Semitism is involved? Then it is not freedom of
expression. Then it is a crime. Yet when Islam is insulted, certain powers
raise the issue of freedom of expression.”

-- Amr Mousa, Arab League
Secretary General

Whether
questioning conventional history is anti-Semitism is debatable.
Illuminating is that Arab League Secretary General Amr Mousa brings to the
fore the dichotomy in adherence to free speech depending on who is making
that speech and who is on the offended end of remarks made under the cover
of free speech. The infamous Danish caricatures of the Islamic prophet
Mohammed are argued to be a free speech issue. The cartoons are published,
so free speech was exercised. That does not make the issue one about free
speech. The issue was rather about the right to make choices. What kind of
choice did Flemming Rose, the culture editor at Jyllands Posten,
make when he commissioned the cartoons? It was a calculated choice to be
provocative, blasphemous, offensive, and to stir up enmity between
Denmark’s majority population and its Muslim minority.

It is about choices -- not
freedom of speech. We make choices each time we decide to utter or not
utter something and hopefully good manners will hold us in check from
making bad choices about what to say. The old idiom “to bite one’s tongue”
refers to the effort a person makes so as not to say something he/she
might regret. If I were to cross the street, walk up to an overweight,
disfigured man and tell him impolitely that he was in need of a diet and
cosmetic surgery then I might myself wind up the recipient of facial
reconstruction. Why should the provocation of Muslims be met with a
different response?

If the Europeans were so
concerned about freedom of speech then they should speak out against the
denial of the right of free speech to historian David Irving in Austria
and others imprisoned elsewhere in Europe for their views. Jyllands
Posten, to its credit, did speak out in a December 2005 piece from its
culture section:

Germany and Austria have
gradually removed themselves far from their Nazi past, so the power of
the state in these countries ought to let people think, write, and speak
as they please -- of course with responsibility for the legislation
surrounding blasphemy, injuries, and more.

David Irving enjoys
recognition as an excellent historian, but he also has the stubborn idea
that the Holocaust didn’t take place. This idea that he formulated 16
years ago can be considered as hysterical, but should it be criminal?

Obviously under Austrian
concepts of justice. That Irving long ago had a change of mind and
acknowledges that a genocide against Jews took place, didn’t help him
when he set foot in on Austrian soil in late autumn. When his case comes
to trial in late February, he risks up to 10 years imprisonment for
having uttered his opinion, that according to his own statement, he no
longer holds.

This is grotesque and out
of step with the European tradition of freedom. [1]

In Austria, the newspaper
Kleine Zeitung published the offending cartoons. Austria ostensibly
practices a double standard on free speech as it impacts Jewish
sensibilities versus Muslim sensibilities. In Germany, where Nazi
sympathizer Ernst Zündel is on trial for views held about the World War II
Holocaust, at least two newspapers published the cartoons: Die Welt
and Berliner Zeitung. The German newspaper that chose to publish
the caricatures of the prophet Mohammed holds German citizen Zündel
accountable for expressing his views. In a byline from Die Welt:
“The 66-year-old pensioner [Zündel] in Mannheim District Court must take
responsibility for incitement of the masses, defamation, and denial of the
memory of the deceased.” [2] Fair enough. Of course
freedom of speech does not come without responsibility for how one wields
it. That is where choice comes into play. Does Die Welt likewise
assume responsibility for its decision to publish the inflammatory
caricature pouring further fuel on the raging fire in its incitement of
the Muslim masses?

Discussion has picked up in
Austria on holocaust revisionism and freedom of speech. [3]
Christian Fleck, a professor of sociology at the University of Graz,
maintains that Austria must use argument against those who question the
Holocaust and not the law. Fleck asks, “Are we really afraid of someone
whose views on the past are palpable nonsense, at a time when every
schoolchild knows of the horrors of the Holocaust? Are we saying his ideas
are so powerful we can’t argue with him?”

Fleck then undermines his
proposition by stating: “Irving is a fool. And the best way of dealing
with fools is to ignore them.” On the one hand he argues for using facts
and logic to defeat false ideas and then he resorts to a personalized
attack and argues instead of using reason just to ignore ideas that one
might find distasteful.

However, for Hajo Funke, a
professor of politics and culture at the Free University of Berlin, free
speech is a luxury unaffordable for Teutons. Funke takes the stand that
restricting free speech is moral: “In Germany and in Austria there is a
moral obligation to fight the kind of propaganda peddled by Irving. We
can’t afford the luxury of the Anglo-Saxon freedom of speech argument in
this regard.”

Polish-born German citizen
Funke opines that there is something about Teutons that renders them
incapable of properly exercising free speech -- an opinion that if
expressed by a non-Teuton could be considered racist.

Says Funke, “It’s not that I
don’t understand it, it’s just not for us. Not yet. Not for a long time.”

Elementary morality is not
meant to be difficult to understand. The principle of equality of rights
holds that if one group enjoys a right then it should be accorded to other
groups. Elementary morality holds that if insulting one group is
impermissible then insulting other groups should be impermissible. One
doesn’t need a PhD to understand such concepts.